How The Glock Became America’s Weapon Of Choice
January 28, 2012
Story By: Fresh Air from WHYY
Paul Barrett is an editor and senior feature writer at Bloomberg Businessweek and an adjunct professor at New York University Law School.
“It’s extremely similar to the way cars are sold, by means of sex and models and lots of other products. In the same way you have models at trade shows of all sorts, you certainly have them at gun trade shows. The appeal is just as obvious as it might seem. Guns are to some people an expression of virility. … A buxom, scantily clad woman appeals to some customers.”
On current efforts to strengthen gun control
“No new federal gun control legislation was passed in the wake of [Columbine and other school shootings], which is in some ways more remarkable that in the wake of Virginia Tech and in the wake of Tuscon, we have similarly seen no new efforts to restrict the legal sale or ownership of guns. In fact, it’s quite to the contrary. Over that time, gun laws in the United States are getting looser, not tighter. It is easier to carry a gun in many states. It is easier to get gun permits. And we have now had a Democratic president for three years, and he’s said barely a word about gun control one way or the other. I think it’s very fair to say that the gun control debate has really been won for the moment by the NRA and by the industry that it cooperates with, and by those people who are in favor of widespread civilian ownership of guns.”
On taking shooting lessons
“People who don’t own guns really need to think about this: It’s just darn fun to fire a gun. It’s interesting. It requires a lot of attention. It’s competitive. And it’s just as people say â it’s a real feeling of power to handle a firearm. That appeal is, in my view, undeniable and part of the reason that guns symbolize individualism, self-sufficiency to such a large portion of the population. I felt it myself.”
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